Green turtles made my week!!

Two good dives at Yellow Mountain with lovely boy Lewis. Lewis is certified Open Water Diver who felt comfortable and chilled underwater. The weather wasn’t as good as it should be in Tenerife we were actually freezing underwater but still it is worth to do such a good dives. My buddy was CK. We were together with Tin Man, Susanne and Alice.

The best day of that week  Despite the beginning where CK mixed Tin Man kit and packed wrong wetsuit for him.  Although that Graham decided to dive with CK’s t-shirt and his swimming shorts. He looked ridiculous but he didn’t want to miss his dives. He was freezing underwater but I admire him for swimming without his wetsuit.

Dived at El Puertito with green turtles for the first time. I was so excited and really enjoyed those 2 dives. You cannot hear turtles while they are swimming but when you finally see them it is a nice surprise  Turtles are beautiful, very calm and chill underwater. They aren’t afraid of people at all. What is more they swim to you for a short distance and allow you to touch them. I really enjoyed El Puertito as a place to dive you may see various fishes and invertebrates. I had a chance to see for the first time sea hare. I saw also few crab the flat one and arrow crab, common octopus, atlantic feather star as well.

Waterskills day!
Even I am the slowest one I really enjoyed those days. Firstly in the morning I did my 400metres and I improve my time. The new one is 11:29  The rest of the skills we did in marina. I towed a diver for 100metres at the surface for the first time and I had really nice time 2:42. I have 4 points for that. I was really proud.  800metres snorkelling is not my strong point.

After waterskills day each days are the laziest one ;). Today I was just reading my Divemaster manual all day long and did my emergency action plan. Good day also !

In the morning Alice informed me that I will be assisting her with DSD on the boat. I already knew that Jenny doesn’t fill comfortable underwater (her swimming pool session wasn’t the best one) so I was aware that I will be holding her tank for the whole dive. 15l cylinder, 8 kilos on me, how cool is that?! …anyway Jenny wasn’t able to dive so I just went with Matchew and Alice for fun dive. It was nice. I saw a lot of various octopus and fishes. I had a good time that day 

In the afternoon I was helping Tin Man with his Emergency First Respond course. My role was to be a victim - I was pretending drunk person with broken leg :D Tin Man was actually very surprised he did not expect me to be so good actor ;)

Two swimming pool sessions with Susanne, Melissa and Marloes ( Susanee’s friend) – she just started her OWD. We had a good time. Marloes is really good with her skills. She field comfortable in the pool. The funniest thing was the Marloes’s position – she was like a dog underwater. Just keeping her hands in front of her for the whole time. We called it Lady Gaga stile or puppy one :D
In the afternoon we did once again stamina test. Once again I improved but these time with my favourite one ;) 800meters snorkelling.
I will be awesome at the end of the internship with my skills :D

New Dive sites in Tenerife...... well for me anyway :-)

I was surprised when we went on a different path on our second dive in yellow mountain. We went west instead of east to a place called Swim Through. It is actually called swim through because we swam through a cave like structure only very shallow and wide open so that you can swim through it to the other side. It was the first time I have ever done anything like that and I really liked it so much. This time I was buddy with Dennis. We were following the group from behind making sure everything is ok and everyone is close to Alice as she leads the dive from the front.

The next day we took Gee to Abades where Melissa was leading the dive. It was the first time we go to the shore from the right side instead of the normal left side from the coast. It was such a beautiful dive where we saw a family of cuttle fish and some morays.

The second dive on the other hand was definitely a very significant dive in my life. I had never seen so many creatures in one dive and was the first time I ever saw an Angel Shark. I thought it was a big one but Melissa told me it was still very young, in any case it was very fast and ran away from us contradicting my expectations as  I thought they were very curious creatures. We also saw Black Moray, Fangtooth Moray, an Octopus, a few Cuttle fish and a lot of different fish.



Then comes the thing I enjoy the most in diving. Night diving is amazing I love the nocturnal creatures they are just so beautiful and all the creatures become less shy in the night. I also never knew cuttlefish can glow in the dark after you point the light to them. And you gotta love the planktons!

We ended our week with a very productive day in the shop. Pete made our skill assessment in the pool, I will have to repeat the CESA and the hovering and we also did the kit exchange which I never thought would be such a beautiful experience.
Gives you much confidence and trust with your buddy. We had to change the scuba unit in addition to the mask and fins all underwater with only one functioning regulator while not allowing anything to touch the water. After doing the normal daily jobs in the shop there was still some time left and Pete allowed us to go snorkelling for an hour.

We spent 45 minutes snorkeling, free diving and doing some fish ID which was  the highlight of my closing day.

Avery productive and enjoyable week.

Mountain climbing and the arrival of Jesus!

I'm sitting in the shop with my laptop, doing this blog. I just got back from the pool where I did my 400 meters swim. I'm pretty tired and sore all over due to all the swimming.

I'm trying to reflect back on the last week; what went well, what went bad, and what went absolutely horribly wrong.

Right now I am at, this point of my internship, where Im beginning to understand why certain things are done the way they are. I'm really starting to see the bigger picture here!

I'm still a relatively inexperienced diver, which means that Im still enjoying every little bit of every dive I have, and everything I see, feel and experience under water, is a big deal to me - even in spite of strong currents, poor visibility and a 3mm. wetsuit (which provide pretty poor insulation from the relatively cold waters at 18 meters).

As long as I am under water, breathing from a regulator, Im as happy as can be.

Last week we went to a dive site called "Las Eras" where Sam was leading the dive. We had to fight some pretty strong currents, especially on the way back. 
Lydia, with whom I was buddy with for that dive, was struggling to keep up with the rest of the group (most likely due to her pewny muscles - oh them girls! :-) 
So I was towing her pretty much all the way back. I didn't mind at all, because that is what a buddy is there for, and I know that she would have done the same for me, had she had the strength.

One other dive that made a deep impact in my mind, was our dive at "StarfishBay". A site usually known for, yeah you guessed it, Starfish. Nowadays, however, the site is a vast underwater desert, nothing but sand and rocks, well almost, and... those damned sea urchins, who have taken over pretty much all of the site. 
I think during that dive, I saw two starfish, and to many sea urchins to count!

I have had some truly amazing dives for the past week, I think what stands out the most, is probably our encounter with a small "Common Ray".

I was surprised to find that a ray acts kinda like a friendly dog. The ray I socialized with, kept circling around us and bumping into my stomach.

Well, I conclude that it was friendly and attention seeking -  (who knows, after all it could mean that it was probing me for any soft spots, in which to lay eggs.:-)

Anyway (how do you continue a blog after a silly comment like the previous?) 
Right, we had a day off sometime last week and instead of resting, which would probably be the smart thing to do, we decided to go climb Montaña Roja (152 meters worth of cliff by the coast at El Medano).

Around 11 o'clock there was a knock on my door, and when I answered, I was meet by no one but our very own Egyptian  Moomin.
He was wearing a big leather cowboy hat, complete with fangtooths in real Indiana Jones style. The bar was set!

Andreas, Moomin and I went to Lydia's apartment to pick her up, all excited to see what kinda cool climbers outfit she would wear.

If Moomin looked somewhat professional in his crazy "(brokeback) mountain climbing hat", Lydia was his direct opposite wearing her flip flops eating a lollipop ready to go climb a freaking mounting!

A short taxi trip  later, we arrived at the bottom of Montaña Roja, ready to climb that badboy. Fifteen minutes later (and 20 meters up the mountain) I found out that my mountain climbing skills didn't really match the amount of bragging that I had been doing previous to the trip. 
However, my self esteem rose a bit when I saw Lydia trying to make her way up the mountain in her flip flops!

We had an amazing fun trip to the Red Mountain - but, more or less, the best part of our trip, was the fact that we had no one falling off the mountain smashing their bodies to a bloody pulp (being FUBAR).

Oh I almost forgot, - we have a brand spanking new room mate in our apartment  "The prince of peace, the son of god himself" Jesus Christ has blessed us with his divine presence. 
He has appeared before us in the form of a big cardboard figure, guarding the west wing of our apartment  
Him being there with us, is, obviously, the result of a wild night out in the town of San Miguel.

Tomorrow I do my first advanced dive (the deep one) so I'm looking very much forward to that!

The adventure continues, stay tuned ya´ll.

- Kevin out

PADI Rescue Exams and Octopus

I will forever remember the first of November 2012 as the day I just started this great adventure in becoming a PADI Divemaster. 

I went to the dive shop of Melissa and Pete the day before the 1st to finally introduce myself in person and also met the two other interns Sam and Lydia that have already been on their internship for one month. Everybody was really nice so I was even more excited about becoming one of them on the other day.

We met in the dive shop the following day at 9 am sharp, all prepared for a great day. I have already met the other interns, who are starting with me, on the Halloween party the night before. So we are four new interns in total, which is Mahmoud from Egypt, Andreas and Dennis from Denmark and me Angela from Germany.

We have been introduced by Alice the future Instructor of Dive and Sea next to Pete one of the owners of the shop. to the duties of being an intern and she also showed us around. We have already learned so much about dive gear, taking care for the equipment and preparations and considerations we have to think about before actually going on a dive.
We also have to learn for our exams and certifications. So we have got deadlines to hand in our exercises of the certification manuals just to make sure that we won't forget about our homework.

Then the real fun part started. Mahmoud and I, both certified PADI Advanced Divers, went in the pool with Alice so that she can check on which level of experience we actually are. For that my last dive was three years ago, I think I wasn't doing to bad. We cleared our masks under water, put the regulator away and had to find it again by moving our right arm in a semi circle from our right leg to our backside and than further behind. We also observed Alice introducing Dennis and Andreas to their first scuba diving experience also in the pool, so we get an idea how to teach someone in becoming a diver.

The second day started with bundling gear up for our first dives in Tenerife. It was still so confusing because everything is new and you just don't now where things are placed at, but I am sure we will improve soon.

Then Melissa the other owner of Dive and Sea took Mahmoud, Sam, me and two other customers with her on a very nice first and second dive in Las Eras, a place about half an hour away from Golf del Sur. It was a shore dive and already a new experience for me because I have never been entering the water for a dive from the shore. I brought some fins with me from Germany and had to find out that they are not useful for scuba diving at all because I didn't fit in with 5mm boots, so I had to go on my second dive without the boots barefoot in the fins.
I was not cold in the water, just the stones on the shore were „tickling“ my feed a little bit. Poor me, so remember... always check for the right equipment before you go on a dive!!!
Still I was so happy about the two dives. We saw trumpet fish ( my favorites by now ), zebra breams, blue fin dam-selfish, a brown moray, a ray and lots of more beautiful sea dwellers.

The night of the third day ended early. At 7 am we were already at the shop starting to get the kits together because we wanted to go on a boat dive to the dive site that is called Yellow Mountain. So that is just what we have done. On the boat was Dennis and Andreas, Pete, Sam, Frank a German customer and me. I have became acquainted to the duty of a boat guard, so I haven't been on the dive with the others, but the job of a Divemaster is not just about the diving. You are supposed to know all the jobs that come with a dive business. So I stayed at the surface, helping the other guys in their kit, taking it of them after the dive, helping them getting settled in the boat again and from time to time I hold my head with mask and snorkel in the water, just to get a little jealous peek on what they were doing under water.

On the fourth day Dennis, Andreas, Sam, Lydia and I had our first day off together and enjoyed getting out for some coffee and breakfast. But we weren't just lazy at all. We actually grouped up to do some reading and some exercises for our exams as well, although it was hard at least for me to fight against the constant doziness. I was exhausted from the long days in advance.

We started refreshed in the fifth day of our internship and went on a navigation or orientation dive at the yellow mountain dive site without any customers. Sam was briefing us ( he will be a Divemaster soon ) in how to hold on to our orientation under water where sometimes everything seem to look exactly alike.
Andreas and I were buddies, which means that we have to watch out for each other and stay close to each other ( you will never loose sight of your buddy, he might save your life if you have problems ).

We split the duties between each other, so I paid attention to the bezels of our dive with my compass and he paid attention to the depth we were diving in. All this information’s, with the direction and some details of the surrounding environment ended up as a.... kind of weird drawing on our slates that we use under water.
Depending on the drawings you could really see that we have done this skill never before. Let's just say, there is a lot room for improvement!!!

The second dive that day was Sam's „special“ :). We got kind of lost under water as he is still training and improving his skills in leading a group under water, he did a really good job in reassuring us, keeping us calm and relaxed and finally we could see the outlines of the boat again. Well done Sam!!!

On the sixth day Melissa, Sam and I went with a Linda, Nick, Tony, Eileen and Mark all experienced  divers from the UK to Las Eras to do two shore dives. Unfortunately for me, we were short on tanks and had to change the plans ( you have to be able to improvise as a professional diver, because it might happen from time to time that gear is missing or dysfunctional or breaking or somebody just doesn't feel well anymore ) and I had to pass on the dive.
Actually I wasn't so sad about it, because I was behind on my reading and homework. So I went through my PADI Rescue manual instead and you can see that it was for good, because today I successfully passed my writing exam and I am on path to become a future PADI Rescue diver.
Well done me :))))

Apart from that, I went on my seventh day on another dive with the same crew than the day before except Melissa, she stayed at the shop and Pete came with us instead. This time we went to Yellow Mountain and Sam was leading both of the dives. First to “Alien Rock” and the other one led us to the “Swim through”, which was a nice rock loop that you could literally swim through.
I found two Octopus on the second dive, which was beautiful. They are incredible intelligent and could probably even learn how to turn off the air of an dive tank to get away from annoying divers.
Never ever should somebody show them that trick!

Angela